Dennis Tuuri

Joshua chapter 3 and Joshua rose early in the morning and removed from Shidam and came to Jordan. He and all the children of Israel and lodged there before they passed over. And it came to pass after 3 days that the officers went through the host. And they commanded the people saying, “When you see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, and the priests, the Levites bearing it, then you shall remove from your place and go after it.

Yet there should be a space between you and it about 2,000 cubits by measure. Come not near unto it, that you may know the way by which you must go, for ye have not passed this way heretofore. Joshua said unto the people, Sanctify yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you. And Joshua spake unto the priests, saying, Take up the ark of the covenant, and pass over before the people.

And they took up the ark of the covenant and went before the people. And the Lord said unto Joshua, this day will I begin to magnify thee in the sight of all Israel, that they may know that as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee. And thou shalt command the priests that bear the ark of the covenant, saying, When ye are come to the brink of the water of Jordan, ye shall stand still in Jordan.

And Joshua said unto the children of Israel, “Come hither and hear the words of the Lord your God.” And Joshua said, “Hereby you shall know that the living God is among you, and that he will without fail drive out from before you, the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Hivites, and the Perizzites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Jebusites. Behold, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth passeth over before you into Jordan.

Now, therefore, take you 12 men out of the tribes of Israel, out of every tribe a man. Then it shall come to pass, as soon as the soles of the feet of the priests that bear the ark of the Lord, the Lord of all the earth, shall rest in the waters of Jordan, that the waters of Jordan shall be cut off from the waters come down from above, and they shall stand upon an heap. And it came to pass, and the people removed from their tents to pass over Jordan, and the priests bearing the ark of the covenant before the people.

And as they that bear the ark were come unto Jordan, and the feet of the priests that bear the ark were dipped into the brim of the water, for Jordan overfloweth all the banks all the time of harvest, that the waters which came down from above stood and rose upon an heap, very far from the city Adam, that is beside Zaretan. And those that came down toward the sea of the plain, even the salt sea, failed, and were cut off.

And the people passed over right against Jericho. And the priests that bear the ark of the covenant of the Lord, stood firm on dry ground in the midst of Jordan. And all the Israelites passed over on dry ground until all the people were passed clean over Jordan.

Please be seated. We thank God for his holy word, and we pray now that he would illumine it to our understanding. At this time the younger children may be dismissed to go to their Sabbath schools. Their parents desire that of them.

I might just mention that we have boldness now in the time of the new covenant, by virtue of the death, burial, resurrection, and ascension and enthronement of our Lord Jesus Christ to approach the throne of God. And I suppose symbolically that means approaching the throne in worship. It’s certainly the model for the rest of our lives approaching the throne of God in prayer, etc.

And we can come boldly to this place and we don’t have to stay toward the back. We can move up to the front and boldly approach where God’s word is read from. It probably be good to do that for a while and try to keep a sense of community toward the front. We used to have one pew fairly empty. Now we’ve got almost three. Anyway, okay.

This text before us is a wondrous one. We know that not just because it seems wondrous to us because it says so right in the middle of it that this is a wondrous thing God is going to do.

It is important to get a brief understanding—and we can’t put a lot of time into this—but a brief sense of the importance, the wonder that the people had as they approached the river Jordan to pass over it and to go into the promised land. They had been waiting, seeing this group of people 40 years in anticipation of this day crossing over into the land flowing with milk and honey. And really, you could say they’ve been in anticipation for 500 years, half a millennium because this is the land now that was promised to Abram when God made the covenant with Abram.

And so, this is the fulfillment of that as it were. So, they waited a long time. You could say they even waited longer than that, however, because actually, they were driven out of the garden because of their sin. They now were approaching a garden-like land again where the presence of God would be in the midst of them again. And so, this is really a day, a chapter recording a day in the life of the Old Testament church that is quite powerful, quite filled with anticipation, joy, and wonder.

And I hope it is for us as well.

I want to try to give a little bit of the implications of this by looking at several crossings of the Jordan. There are actually quite a few listed in the scriptures, but we’ll just look at a few of those and then draw some applications for us as we look at those. Some of the crossings of the Jordan. I’m going to build a little bit of sense of anticipation about dealing with the specific text by first going back as these people had 40 years ago passed through the Red Sea and the crossing of the slaves of Egypt crossing the Red Sea and their linear correlations that the text wants us to draw between that crossing and this one.

For instance, the phrase “the waters are lifted up on a heap”—it’s the same phrase that is used in the song of Moses to describe what happened at the Red Sea. Now, there are differences and that’s important too, but there are many similarities.

I mentioned the antiphonal reading of the Psalms and how important they are. In Psalm 114, a psalm probably you’re pretty familiar with, we read, “When Israel went out of Egypt, the house of Jacob from a people of strange language. Judah was a sanctuary and Israel has dominion. The sea saw it and fled. Jordan was driven back. And so if we were going to do that antiphonally today, you know, the I would read “the sea saw it and fled,” and you would respond “Jordan is driven back.” Well, it wasn’t the Jordan Sea. You see, it was the Jordan River and that crossing that we’re dealing with today. But God puts it antiphonally as the correct response in our thinking to what happened at the Red Sea.

So he draws a very close correlation there. “The mountains skipped like rams, the little hills like lambs. What ailed thee, oh thou sea that thou fledest? Thou Jordan that thou was driven back?” It correlates the two again. And so there’s many correlations between the crossing of the Jordan and the Red Sea crossing.

Remember as we look at the Red Sea crossing just briefly here, bring to mind in your remembrance these six points I’ve made here. There was a sense of consecration, the Passover itself that preceded the crossing of the Red Sea and God’s miracle at the Red Sea as they came out of Egypt. The consecration of course was primarily the whole series of plagues and the people of Israel contemplating the one with whom they had to do and a consecration and a setting a part of themselves to that God. That was the whole point of these exercises of plagues—not just to judge Pharaoh but to consecrate a people and preeminently of course that takes place in the Passover.

Moses then after the Passover leads the people out. They kind of do a little faint there. They think that God has them camp in a place where he kind of draws the Egyptians out after them, so to speak. And Moses obeys the command of God to do that. The people don’t like that much. They say, “Hey, you know, we’re going to get caught by the Egyptians now.” Moses said, “Well, just relax and see the power of God at work.”

So Moses leads the people. Then the Egyptians come out after them. And then Moses with his rod affects the parting of the Red Sea. And God’s people then pass through. And as a result of this, of course, Moses is exalted in the people. We read in Exodus 14:31, “And Israel saw the great work which the Lord did unto the Egyptians, and the people feared the Lord and believed the Lord and his servant Moses.” It’s very interesting. The people feared the Lord. In other words, they didn’t have a proper fear of the Lord before this miracle. And then they believed God and they also believed Moses. So, Moses was exalted, so to speak, again, through this incident. People knew that God was with Moses and Moses’ authority was more firmly established as a result of this miracle.

And then I’ve got the last element of this is heavenization. You can see that beginning in the Red Sea crossing with the destruction of the Egyptians in the Red Sea. The enemies are consumed and God’s people are safely delivered into their next marches toward the promised land. And heavenization involves those two elements: the Egyptians, those who would be Egyptians, whether they call themselves Christians, Jews, or whatever, being punished or judged by God as these deliverances are affected by him and the people established as a result.

And so if we have a proper understanding of that background, it helps us to understand a little bit better, I think, the text we have to deal with now, which involves the Passover, the passing over of the Jordan River by the people themselves.

Now, throughout chapters 3 and 4—and chapters 3 and 4 are really a unit together. Four kind of retells what is finished in three, the crossing of the Jordan with a different emphasis in terms of memorialization. We’ll deal with that next week. But throughout these two chapters, the word Jordan and the word the ark of the covenant and crossed over are very prominent in the text. And of course, that’s the main thing going on here is the people are crossing over the Jordan.

And the ark of the covenant is also very prominently mentioned. This crossing over is used 22 times in these two chapters. The word ark is mentioned nine times in chapter 3, seven times in chapter 4 and four more times indirectly. So 20 times the ark is mentioned. You know they were supposed to keep their eyes on the ark as it entered into the Jordan River. And for that purpose the ark was set 2,000 cubits—rather about a thousand meters or so I think that is—in front of them so they might keep their eyes on the ark.

And one commentator has said that with the constant recurrence of the term ark we keep our eyes on the ark too as we read these passages. Very important that we understand the ark’s significance in all of this. We’ll talk about that now. First though, a little bit about the Jordan River and to add to your understanding of the miraculous event and the wonder of all this. I think it’s important to know a little bit about the Jordan River.

The Jordan Valley existed between the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea and it varies in breadth. This is the valley itself of the Jordan River between 3 and 14 miles. The river’s flood plane was anywhere from 20 yards to one mile across—is where it would go during the flooding season, which is what the time of year this event happened.

The floodstream itself was packed with apparently real tangled bush, almost jungle growth, leading one commentator to say that it was not the river so much as the jungle that was difficult to cross. And the fords of the Jordan that are mentioned in the scriptures and historically were the places where people would ford over the Jordan. The fords of the Jordan were as much ways through the jungle as they were through the river.

So, it wasn’t just the river, it was all the tangled vegetation that was in the flood plane as well.

The Jordan could only be traversed at this particular time of year. It’s interesting. Usher in his chronology says that the date for this was April 28th. So, we just missed it by a few days in terms of God leading us to this point of the text. But certainly, it happened in the late April, early May. And that was the time of the harvest.

And during this time, the text explicitly tells us that Jordan overflowed all of its banks. The Jordan had essentially three banks: a narrow initial bank, a larger bank for the normal part of the river, and then the flood plane itself. And so the Jordan at this time of year always overflowed all of its banks because the snow was melting up on Mount Hermon and things were melting adding to the river. And at this particular time of the year, it formed a raging torrent.

Another thing about the Jordan is that it is fairly steep in its descent. Let’s see. It averages 9 feet per mile of descent and so you know it’s a very fast descent and actually from Mount Hermon itself it was going down at 40 feet per mile. So with all the water coming down and with the depth of the descent into the Dead Sea which is extremely low in its elevation where the Jordan empties out into—this was a raging torrent of a river.

This was not some you know small river. This was an extremely difficult passage. Later in 2 Chronicles I believe the reporting of the Jordan at this time of the year by swimming by trained warriors was accorded a mighty feat of courage and valor. And so the people of Israel, they weren’t just warriors. They had women and children. They were a whole community 2 million strong probably in that area. And they had to cross this river.

And it looked absolutely impossible. And it’s interesting that God chose in his providence the time of year when this river was the deepest, the swiftest, the widest. All those things were going on. And this is the time that God is going to demonstrate his power by causing the Jordan to part for them.

So the Jordan River is mentioned very prominently. It’s important we know those things. It was a raging torrent. And certainly one of the obvious lessons of all that is we can contribute nothing to our salvation or deliverance. There’s no way the people can get across there without the help of God in the time that he accorded them to do at the single day crossing.

Now I mentioned the ark. The ark is prominent in the story where God says to take the ark of the covenant and lead them across. The ark is a picture obviously of the presence of God with the people. In Numbers 10:33 and the following we read the following about the ark in the 10th chapter: “They departed from the mount of the Lord 3 days journey and the ark of the covenant of the Lord went before them in the 3 days journey to search out a resting place for them.”

The ark would search out a resting place and what we’re seeing here really is the penultimate movement of the ark into the resting place for the people of God through the crossing of the Jordan. And “the cloud of the Lord is upon them day by day when they went up out of the camp.”

It’s very important to recognize that in the wilderness wanderings up to this point in history, they were being led in the wilderness wanderings through the cloud and then the fire by night. And that was the visible manifestation of God and his power to them that they followed. But now we see the ark taking up a place.

Verse 35 says, “It came to pass when the ark went forward that Moses said, rise up, Lord, and let thine enemies be scattered, and let them that hate thee flee before thee. And when the ark rested, Moses would say, ‘Return, O Lord, unto the many thousands of Israel.’”

This is the liturgy that Moses would go through. When the ark got up, they were following the cloud and the pillar. They carried the ark. They knew that through those mechanisms, they’re being carried to a promised land. When the ark gets up, Moses says, you know, strike your enemies. May they flee before you. And when the ark rests at the end of the journey, return to the thousands of those who are in covenant with you.

So God himself—the point of all this is that the ark is certainly closely tied in this text and other places of scripture to God himself. Jesus is the ark of the covenant essentially and God’s presence with them was guaranteed or assured to them as it were or symbolized by the presence of the ark.

But additionally the ark itself is important to remember what it was. It was a box with a lid on it. The box was covered with gold inside and out. The lid was pure gold. Inside the box are the tablets of the law. So the ark is reminiscent and should bring to mind the authority of God of course but his law as well and as a result of his law the proper judgment against those who break God’s law. So the ark goes up, the law of God goes out, people are slain by that law and by God proceeding with it.

But the second part, the significant part of the ark of the covenant here is that it is an ark of a covenant. It’s the covenant that God made with his people and it’s a covenant of grace. The top of the ark—that gold covering—has two cherubim on it with wings and God would essentially be seen to be sitting there in the midst of that on his throne room as it were. His foot and the ark was essentially his footstool. And he, the presence of God is there. But also the grace of God is manifested. Once a year on the day of atonement the priest would come in and sprinkle that golden top of the ark with the blood of the sacrifice.

And so God’s grace was seen on that top of that ark. Luther in his translation of that phrase describing the top of the ark of the covenant coined the term mercy seat and it’s an excellent picture of what’s going on there. This is the mercy seat of God where God sits and he exhibits his mercy toward his people through the shed blood of a substitutionary atonement in the Old Testament of animals looking forward to the coming of the blood of Jesus Christ.

So the ark is a picture of the presence of God. It’s a picture of the law of God and the justice and the judgment that goes with it. But it’s also a picture of the mercy of God. And so all these things would be brought visibly to mind as the ark goes forward before the people into the river Jordan. As they entered the land flowing with milk and honey, they would be doing so reminiscent of the propitiary atonement that was made in the garden for the sins of the people going into that land in the new garden again as it were following that ark which was a symbol of the presence of God mercy and judgment as well.

And of course ultimately these things were given to these folks that they might look forward to. As Calvin says their eyes might be raised up to the Lord Jesus Christ who is the demonstration of God’s justice and mercy in his person and work.

So we have this constant reminder of justice and mercy put before the people and put before us as well in this story.

Yet it is that affects our salvation. The Jordan is always associated with death. As we read earlier in the responsive readings, the Jordan is associated with death and hell and damnation. And we are ushered through that death through the sole work of Jesus Christ. We have no part in the deliverance of ourselves and our entrance into salvation in Christ.

That is totally Christ’s work. And he causes us to come to saving faith in that work and that work outside of ourselves. No internal righteousness of ourselves, but rather the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ and his atonement for our sins, the blood and the mercy seat. Those are the only basis for our salvation. It’s not of our works. It’s not of our own infused righteousness from Christ. Rather, it’s a righteousness outside of us in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

Very important that this picture of salvation not be passed over. And if you’re trusting somehow in your observance of God’s law for eternal salvation with him, you are trusting in but only brings you damnation and should bring you to the place of relying upon the mercy seat of the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation.

In any event, so what we have going on here is this crossing over the river Jordan correlated by the scripture itself, by the texts involved and then by the Psalms and other places to the crossing of the Red Sea. And we see some differences. We see a consecration of the people is necessary. The text tells us that Moses instructed the people to consecrate themselves because God was going to do this mighty thing in them crossing over the Jordan River. A consecration was necessary. We don’t we’re not told specifically what that consecration was. In other places of scripture, you would go through washings. You would abstain from sexual relationships with your wife with your husband.

You might fast, but essentially it is a preparation for the appearance of God in a special way manifested to the people through the crossing of the ark into the Jordan River. So they were consecrated.

Instead of Moses, now we have Joshua. Moses is dead and Joshua takes his place. And in terms of the analogies, we could say that Moses is Christ who becomes crucified and Joshua is the resurrected Jesus Christ who leads his people forth into the land of promise.

So we have a transition. Instead of the rod of Moses used to part the Red Sea, we now have the ark of the covenant. And see, we’re seeing we’re seeing a movement here from glory to glory. We’re seeing a movement from Moses to Joshua and the Christ who dies for our sins into the risen Christ glorious Christ. We’re seeing a movement from the plain rod, emblem of the authority and majesty of God and his power.

Now we see the ark of the covenant, a much more developed picture of the grace of God, the law of God, his majesty and holiness and presence in the midst of the people in the context of all of that. And so he leads them forth in knowledge and an apprehension of who he is as we move into the land of promise.

Now God’s presence is affirmed as I said but through the ark of the covenant. But his presence again is stressed throughout these first three or four chapters of the book of Joshua. Over and over again, we hear that you might know that God is with you, that he is present with his people.

Now, this is really a shift as well because remember we said with Moses, the whole point was the people were to fear God. And now there is a movement away from fear into an acknowledgement of the presence of God comforting his people.

Now, fear is there. Fear and belief are necessary. And if people haven’t come to that point, you don’t want to lead them into an understanding of the comforting presence of God without going through the fear of God. But these are a people that have gone through that experience of understanding the fear of God. God doesn’t really listen to the people much. It’s kind of you almost read the Exodus account that he’s treating them kind of brusque. You know, they’re saying we’re worried that the Egyptians are going to get us. And God doesn’t say be strong, be of courage. I’m going to be with you the way he does to Joshua.

He tells Moses, “Well, just tell them to get going and obey here and I’ll manifest myself.” And when he manifests them, their response is a fear of God. But those who have come through that fear and belief in God are brought into the presence of the comforting assurance of God with them. And that’s what’s stressed here in Joshua.

Joshua is exalted. Now, instead of Moses being exalted, correlation, but still change. Instead of Moses being exalted, now Joshua’s leadership, this is a real host of people. This is an army of God comprised of people, two million strong. And they have to have authority exhibited in the midst of them. And there is a sense in which we could talk about the exaltation of Jesus Christ, which we will do in a couple of minutes. But Joshua himself is a military leader and is a civil authority in that sense, is exalted amongst the people, and that’s very important.

God frequently uses symbols such as this symbol of the crossing of the sea, a miraculous work handed over to Joshua to empower him with the respect of the people who would obey him. And so Joshua himself is exalted. The text tells us that explicitly that God says, “I’ll begin this day to magnify you. And the people will know as I was with Moses, so I am with you.” And I’m sure that in the history of the church, this is a common pattern as well.

God causes people to understand that his leadership is with particular people and they are called. He magnifies them and they are called to follow them and to believe that. And then the heavenization process—you know, these people aren’t going forward in isolation. They are going forward into a land flowing with milk and honey. But remember that they go across right across from Jericho. Very interesting, you know, because immediately as soon as they get this miracle, they’re immediately face to face with the enemy.

With warfare and with a real need to conquer now. And so it isn’t simply an enter into rest in the sense of no activity. It’s the rest of knowing that God’s presence is with them. He will guide and direct them and he will cause them to drive out the seven Canaanite nations emblematic of all the world authority arrayed against the people of God. Seven being the number of completeness.

And so there’s a heavenization process. Yes, they will take the land of Canaan and they will model it according to the laws of God and they will attempt to establish God’s will on earth as it is in heaven in the sense of them growing their vineyards and respecting God’s civil order and his ecclesiastical order and his community order and social order and family order. They’ll do that thing.

But part of that heavenization process is also the destruction of those whose iniquity is full. And so we see these correlations, but we also see a magnification of what’s actually occurring now. It’s not just the destruction of the Egyptians and then they’re out. Now it’s the destruction—the coming destruction—that they will take part in of the people whose sins are full. But it is also the establishment of them in the land. It is as much an isodus as it is an exodus. As much as an entry, an exit from someplace, it is an entry into some place.

Very important to see this connection as I talked about two weeks ago between salvation and conquest. That whole process.

So in this passing over of the Jordan River rather we see these elements all come together. We see this heavenization process as well.

One final note on this conquest: the term “the Lord of all the earth” is used in verse 11 and he tells them as they prepare again for this crossing that the Lord of all the earth is with them. And this is a term denoting the power of God over all things. And it is as sure as God’s presence is with them. He is the God of all the earth. And so as a result, the sureness of his presence is also becomes to them a pledge of the conquest of Canaan. “If the living God be among you, expelling he will expel. That’s how the Hebrew text reads from before you the Canaanites. Expelling he will expel. God’s very presence is always expelling, evaluating, judging and casting out some and establishing others.

And so God will expel. Expelling he will expel the Canaanites from their presence and he will lead them into full conquest. How could after all the inhabitants of this land stand their ground when the Jordan River itself and its raging torrent was driven back by the power and might of God. I mean, it’s plain that he is assuring them here of their conquest as well.

As I said, the seven Canaanite nations exhibit the complete power of the enemy only to show the power of the Lord supreme above these powers of the seven Canaanite nations and removing them from off the land.

It’s interesting that these seven Canaanite nations, some of them are specifically identified in various places as those that dwell by the sea. Others are those that dwell in the mountains. Some are those that dwell in the north. Some are those that dwell in Jerusalem. And you get the picture again of the completeness of all the enemies in these various places around Canaan that would be driven out as the Lord of all the earth takes possession in a fuller more transformed sense of the promised land and brings his people into it.

And I think it’s very important that as we read statements of state of Satan’s usurpation of power over the world and the world’s systems at various times in history, we not forget that it is God who is the Lord of all the earth. We don’t seed over a single portion of a foot of God’s earth. Rather, God assured Joshua and he assures us today that every place we step, it is God’s land. And as a result, he gives it to his people who are in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

Calvin said that this epitaph, the Lord of all the earth, exalted the government of God over all the elements of the world, that the Israelites might have no doubt that as the seas and rivers are under his control, the waters, although liquid by nature, would become stable at his nod. And we read that in portions of the Psalms. The water become a rock. And he’s the same God who turned the rock into water in the wilderness. All the powers of the earth are under God’s command and authority and move in terms of his covenant people and their establishment and the judgment upon those who are outside of Jesus Christ. He is Lord of all the earth.

That phrase is used in Micah 4:13, Zechariah 4, and Zechariah 6. And each of those references are references demonstrating the power of God over the entire creation and calling his people to arise and thresh in Micah 4 and the spirit of God goes out, the spirit of the Lord of all the earth goes out over the whole earth pictured in the book of Zechariah.

Okay. So we see these correlations and I want to talk. There are many places in the scriptures we read of the crossing of the Jordan River. Jacob had crossed the Jordan River when he met with Esau. Gideon had to cross the river. David had to cross the Jordan River in pursuit of enemies. There are many places in the scriptures that we could look at for the crossing of the Jordan and its significance. But I wanted to just mention briefly the second chapter of 2 Kings where we have Elijah and Elisha and very much things that bring to mind what we’re dealing with here in this passage of scripture and again reinforces much of what we’ve been talking about.

In 2 Kings 2, Elijah is in his last days. He knows he’s shortly going to be going to be with the Lord and Elisha is tagging along after him. He tries to tell him take off but Elisha stays right with him. And I think that’s a good model for us with godly men. We want to stay close to them. We want to learn as much as we can from them. And Elijah goes back. He goes to Gilgal. Then he goes to Bethel. And then he goes to Jericho where a school of the prophets are.

And then they come to the Jordan River, him and Elisha. And Elijah takes his mantle and folds it and strikes the Jordan River with his mantle. And the Jordan River parts here and there, it says, and they go across the Jordan River. And then Elijah is taken up in a chariot. And because Elisha has seen him being taken up in the chariot, carried into heaven. He then is granted his desire for a double portion of the spirit that was upon Elijah.

He then takes Elijah’s mantle, takes it, and he also then to get back across the Jordan, strikes the river with it. The river parts here and there for him. He walks across it, and then a couple of things happen.

Now, we have a very similar sequence to what’s going on here. Elijah can be seen in terms of Moses who is in the wilderness where he is taken up away and goes into God’s presence. The mantle now is the representation of God’s power investment for authority and significantly now it’s the mantle worn by man. And we’ll talk when we get to the story of the taking of Ai how God trains his people as warriors and mantles them to do what he can accomplish through his work ultimately only but then he empowers us to do the same things. So now it’s the mantling of men that causes the parting of the Jordan. And so we see very similar circumstances here and we see as Joshua is an exalted magnified Moses. So also Elisha has the double portion of the spirit resting upon him.

The risen Christ is more powerful in that sense than the Christ who dies for our sins. As he comes forward resurrected, he has renewed authority. It is after his resurrection that he says all power in heaven and earth has been given unto me and then commands us to go forth conquering.

Additionally, as soon as Elisha gets through this crossing, what does he do? The very first two things he does before dealing with the prophets and the kings and stuff going on into 2 Kings 3 two things are talked about in terms of Elisha. The first is the springs at Jericho are not good. And so Elisha takes some salt, puts it in those springs that are coming out of Jericho and it becomes living fresh water. So he changes the water from dead water into living water. And that Jericho itself alongside of the Jordan River. So he causes this heavenization process again, the claiming of all things for God and the revivification of the garden so to speak, the promised land through the work and ministry of Jesus Christ in his church.

But then another thing happens. Bunch of kids come up to him and start mocking him, saying, “Go up, thou baldhead. Go up.” And Elisha pronounces a curse upon them in the name of the Lord. And bears come out and rip 42 of them to pieces. He brings judgment upon those who are outside of the true Israel, the covenant community of God through his prayers and through his consulting with God over what should happen to these rebellious children of God. And God punishes them. So, it’s the same process where we have the destruction of God’s enemies, the establishment of his people, and their heavenization of that portion of the earth under the power of the spirit of God that comes upon us fully in the resurrected Jesus Christ.

But there’s another crossing, of course, that all these things point forward to. All these things, as Calvin said, were given to us that our eyes might be raised, that their eyes might be raised, and also when we read these texts, that our eyes might be raised to the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Christ who was with them in the desert and who commanded them in their trek through the desert and now in the symbol of the ark stood by them in their death-like experience of Jordan and Jordan’s crossing until they were safe on the other side. All these things are emblematic of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The cloud in Moses as one commentator remarks upon as opposed to the ark in Joshua. All things in Moses were wrapped up in a cloud as it were and veiled about. But in Joshua, the picture of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and his resurrection, what do we see? We see the ark of the covenant unveiled. Now, the covenant becomes veiled again in the temple in the tabernacle in the in the promised land. It becomes veiled again. But we have here a picture of what will happen in the new covenant times when Jesus comes and does the definitive crossing of the Jordan River, goes to the death, burial, and resurrection for us.

The ark of the covenant is manifest before all the people and that all two million of them gaze upon it and see the presence of God, his justice and mercy with them. So these things are made clear in the ark and clearer yet in the and work of the savior Jesus Christ.

It was at the banks of the Jordan, as we said earlier, that God began to exalt Joshua. And it was at the banks of the Jordan that God began also to exalt our savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. As he went to be baptized in the Jordan by John the Baptist, he dipped into that water. The water then was used to baptize him. And God then in that baptism said, “This is my beloved son.” And God the Father begins to magnify and exalt the Lord Jesus Christ through that process.

It’s interesting though that in Christ’s crossing as it were emblematic here in his baptism of the Jordan, the waters don’t part for him and the waters don’t part for the Lord Jesus Christ. He takes upon himself the full torrent coming down from Adam as it were the curses of God against those who would break his law or violate his law. The Lord Jesus takes upon himself the full torrent of the Jordan River. He takes upon himself the full tortures and and pains of death and hell upon the cross ultimately of course—the baptism with which he was baptized by his death.

And so Jesus unlike us enters the Jordan River fully. Ultimately and takes upon himself the full torrent and the raging of that water that is feeding the dead sea. But he causes it now to become a sea of living water to those who would follow him as he parts the waters for us. So Jesus is the ultimate picture of all these things.

And it’s interesting in the scriptures we have a pattern going from Romans to Colossians to Ephesians. Romans stressing the death to sin. Colossians stressing that if we are dead with Christ, we are risen with him. And Ephesians then moving on to say we are seated with him in heavenly places. And we see this transition as it were through these three emphases and these three epistles of the movement of God’s people through the Jordan and into being established with Christ in his promised land.

All of this is summed up and pictured for us in this crossing of the Jordan River.

The risen Christ is glorified in what his death accomplishes through for us. And now as I said this side of the resurrection, he says that all power on heaven and in earth are given unto him. No longer do we have a land. We are now transported across that Jordan River ushered into a promised land which encompasses the whole earth. And so ultimately of course a geographic locality cannot be pinned to what our Lord has done. It all pointed forward to his death on the cross and his victorious resurrection.

I might mention also that before we move on to the application of this to our lives that there’s one other application that we should think of here. Matthew Henry talked about it and I think it’s kind of obvious as you read the references to the city called Adam. The only place in the scriptures where this city is mentioned. The city of Adam obviously bringing to mind the garden. And also we have the fact here that the waters at both the Red Sea and at the Jordan River are collected over into one place in terms of the Jordan crossing and the dry land appears.

Chapter 4 makes it uses the phrase how the dry land is what they set their souls upon. Not just land but the dry land. And again the crossing of the Red Sea it’s emphasized it was the dry land that was left as the waters move back. At the creation of the earth of course the Holy Spirit hovers over the earth and the waters are collected into one place, leaving the dry land.

Now, Matthew Henry sees this just to as a reminder to the people as they go into the blessings of the promised land that they serve the Lord of all creation and the power of creation is with them as well. But I think that if we do see that correlation, we can see again this transformation from strength to strength and glory to glory of God’s people and now they move into as it were a new creation ultimately to come as we said in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

You see, this is a wondrous text when you understand it in its fullness. I’ve just touched briefly and some of the correlations to other scriptures, but they’re a tremendous blessing to us when we understand the fullness of what is being spoken of here.

As I said, the waters were flowing down from Adam. That’s where the waters are backed up to according to the text. And then they’re cut off from the Dead Sea. See, it’s not like in the crossing of the Red Sea, the waters piled up on either side. But here in the crossing of the Jordan, the waters pile up at Adam, but there’s no pile up over here on the Dead Sea side. The waters just kind of go out and now they’re gone on that side. So you got a big wall of water 19 miles away roughly is where they think Adam was. And then the Dead Sea is essentially cut off from water.

Well, we see Adam and his sin resulting in the deadness of the Dead Sea. And the deadness, that curse is now cut off for his people. Those waters are pushed back and they’re ushered into the land of blessing following the Lord Jesus Christ, the ark of the covenant, the presence of God, his justice, and his mercy. Death is removed and the dead waters become living waters. But remember that this is at a tremendous cost.

As I said, Jordan overflowed its banks. So death and the overflowing of its banks also came fully upon our savior as he accomplished this great deliverance, this new creation, this blessing for us in this transferral.

Now, what does all this mean to us? What is our task in conquest as we see this? Well, what I’ve tried to argue for and we’ll continue to throughout this book is that we don’t see this as a model of salvation into heaven. We don’t see the promised land as the land of heaven. And all this stuff refers to our death in the body and then we enter into heaven because there aren’t any enemies to fight in heaven. There’s no Jericho, right? Among other things.

And besides all this, these correlations to other texts and this heavenization process that is pictured in all of them shows us that what we’re talking about here is when one becomes a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ and follows him through the waters of the first death, the death that God’s word forms upon him as he brings us to new life in Jesus Christ. We’re ushered into a land of promise that also has battles and we are brought face to face with real problems.

I remember when I became a Christian, or became cognizant of the Lord Jesus Christ’s claims upon me, 20 more years ago and then I started going to a church and soon there were problems all around and I began to realize the country wasn’t doing so good. I always thought that becoming a Christian would be kind of like going home, you know, everything would be okay now and we wouldn’t have a lot of problems and it would be a nice life. Well, it is a nice life, but it’s filled with problems because—and I never understood that for a long time and probably not fully till I read this text.

But as we become Christians, as we commit ourselves to follow the presence of God, his justice and his mercy, his law and his grace to make those preeminent in our eyes as we follow the Lord Jesus Christ, he brings us across the Jordan into the promised land, but he brings us face to face as these people were with Jericho. The powers of the earth, the powers of the world, the powers of Satan, and those powers inside ourselves that would resist the Lord Jesus Christ and his claims.

What I’m saying is that this transition shows us that to be a Christian means to be committed to following him and that following him into battle, which is assured to be conquest to us, but it is battle nonetheless. We all have these battles. They are more momentous at times than others. There are special times we see throughout the crossing of the Jordan that are listed in the scriptures. There are particular times when these patterns become clearer to us. But ultimately, all of our lives is a process of God driving sin out of us, driving sin out of the world around us, taking us from glory to glory and strength to strength, having us be more righteous, more just, and more merciful in our actions, and having that effect upon the world as well.

And God does that through ripping us apart, through bringing us through the Jordan, and through causing us turmoil and trial. And we’ll see that as we go through the book of Joshua as well.

There is sin involved. Remember I said when we talked about the seven deadly sins, the early church fathers correlated those to the seven Canaanite nations. And as powerful as the seven Canaanite nations are, you can equate that with the power of the seven deadly sins and their attack upon you and you’re falling into them can be just as destructive as falling into a band of Canaanites. But God promises to conquer both the Canaanites and those seven deadly sins and the implications of pride in all of its forms in our lives.

So salvation is an isodus. It’s not just a departure from enslavement. Rather, it is a bringing into full responsibility. These were slaves who came out of Egypt, but now they’re a host that go into the promised land. And we come out of slavery to sin and sin and its implications, the just judgment of God upon us, by the way, for that sin. And we come in then to full responsibility.

And so slavery and imprisonment is always seen. I said talk about the correlations between Joshua and the book of Acts. We’ll see in the book of Acts, the constant correlations to imprisonment being a time prior to an exodus and an isodus—a release from prison and deliverance as the Lord Jesus was released from death and a resurrection and people come forward out of slavery and imprisonment into the battle and into conquest and victory as well.

It’s interesting as I said that they come up right across Jericho and of course that Red Sea is not still parted is it? When they go across what happens? The ark comes out of the water and the waters close the door. The door is closed. You know, I remember when I first got married and we courted for a while first, we were really anxious to get married and then you got we day we were married, I realized we’d never court again. That door had closed in the providence of God. And when you have kids, you know, your first child will never be the same anymore. Another door is closed. And of course, a better door has opened for you. You go from glory to glory in that. The doors closed behind us.

And when a Christian becomes a Christian and commits himself to follow the Lord Jesus Christ, the door is closed behind him. The Jordan River goes back over. And if people don’t want that, conflict now. Well, that’s just too bad because I don’t think God’s going to open it up if they want to get out. And most people aren’t going to be able to swim back across that river. God ushers us into full conflict. And as much as we may want to go back, that isn’t what God wants. Nostalgia is a bad thing.

See, God doesn’t want us looking backwards and going backwards in what we’re doing. We live at a time today when there’s a Jordan being passed over. I think the polity of the church—we’ve talked about this before—denominations, I think, are coming to an end. The things that have separated Episcopalians, congregationalists, Presbyterians, I think those things are going to be shaken out by God and that the reformation will continue in its fullness in terms of church polity and in terms of a restoration and more of that a transformation of biblical worship as we understand the commands of God relative to that process.

We’re in a time when people like Francis Schaeffer and Thomas Howard and others go back. They go back to a Roman Catholic church. Some people have gone back to Eastern Orthodox churches or whatever. They think there’s the answer. The answer isn’t back that side of the Jordan as we go through these experiences. The answer is ahead and the answer is unknown. They didn’t know what exactly they were going to face. They had some idea as they began to do battle in the land of promise. And we don’t know exactly what we’re going to face and what the end result will be. But we know that the providence of God would be glorious and more glorious than the past held for us.

So this passage teaches us a forward-looking perspective. Not a return to the past, a movement ahead as God continues to perfect his people and his world.

Well, what are some of our obligations as we go through all this? First, thanksgiving for God’s presence, law, mercy, and victory. Thanksgiving for all these things. As I said, it was God’s presence that was being stressed—that they would know that God was among them. The object of the text here is to impress upon us, as one commentator said, with the adequacy of God for all of our salvation and conquest of our selves and the world around us.